Male Viera as a playable character! show your support

[Vahlnir]

I dont think there is a hidden agenda. YoshiP stated what he did because at that time, that was the case. FFXIV has been known to run a shoe string budget and yet turned out fairly successful. So not having the resources to do a lot of what we want was the norm. But that model likely will have to change, particularly with how successful ShB was. The simple fact FFXIV:ARR was released in 2013 with a character engine that was already outdated by its launch, and has not received all that much attention since launch. Things they should be able to implement fairly easily are incredibly difficult for the devs. Not to mention weird quirks within the engine (lalafell breast sliders?). And spending time to update the engine so they can streamline other processes (like the issue with armor and glamour) would mean spending money and time now to save costs later. This is incredibly common in virtually every business enterprise. Every so often, spending a hunk of cash to streamline internal processes for more efficiency and long term benefits. Also, if they were to do it, they could potentially give us those off sexes that people want.

So addressing the character creation engine resolves a whole slew of requests and issues that lie specifically with that part of the game, and will help extend the games lifespan and remain competitive on the MMO market.

Now as I said before, this isnt a guarantee. They may just stick to what they have and continue to struggle with it no matter how they proceed. But it makes more sense long term to update the engine as that would give them a lot more flexibility going forward and would likely pay for itself a lot quicker than you might suggest. It also explains why there has been almost no movement on fixing hrothgar/viera, would enable the possibility of off sexes, and be a selling point for the next xpac.

It's also worth noting that flying in ARR realms was once upon a time "Never going to happen". Yet devs took time to do that. And that is a pretty hefty thing to do because there are huge areas in the ARR maps that needed fixing. Taking on heavy tasks to update the game and keep it fresh is not unheard of.

If he hadn't explicitly said that he plans to keep the game going for another decade I'd be willing to believe that some things aren't going to happen. If SE truly does plan to keep it going for that long, I'm sure they are well aware they it will need to be brought up to speed in order to last even half as long. I have a feeling we will see some changes happen. I just don't know if it will be during Endwalker.

[ItMe]

If he hadn't explicitly said that he plans to keep the game going for another decade I'd be willing to believe that some things aren't going to happen. If SE truly does plan to keep it going for that long, I'm sure they are well aware they it will need to be brought up to speed in order to last even half as long. I have a feeling we will see some changes happen. I just don't know if it will be during Endwalker.

Not to mention that they might be planning to ration out big additions over the course of those 10 years.

[TheMightyMollusk]

Part of me hopes they'll go all the way with the idea and in trials & raids one of the healer slots will be specific to pure healers and one will be for shield healers.
Split the role.

They'll never do that, any more than they'd split the DPS slots between melee, ranged, and caster (or, hell, split any slot to avoid duplicate jobs). It would just slow down the queue if there were too many of one slot.

[Neosgamer]

It Needs to happen.

[ItMe]

They'll never do that, any more than they'd split the DPS slots between melee, ranged, and caster (or, hell, split any slot to avoid duplicate jobs). It would just slow down the queue if there were too many of one slot.

Yeah...
Even if there were 5 pure healers and 5 shield healers... I don't expect it to happen.
And it would come with many other problems, but... part of me would still love to see it.
Like, any combo of DPS is going to be more effective in some fights, but less so in others. But with this healer rework... if they're planning on balancing content around parties having a specific comp (1 pure & 1 shield) I feel there should be a structure in game asserting that comp.
Ah well, we'll have to see what happens. I don't imagine that comp will be a necessity (or anything close) but we'll have to see how it all shakes out in 6.0.

[zeylos]

If he hadn't explicitly said that he plans to keep the game going for another decade I'd be willing to believe that some things aren't going to happen. If SE truly does plan to keep it going for that long, I'm sure they are well aware they it will need to be brought up to speed in order to last even half as long. I have a feeling we will see some changes happen. I just don't know if it will be during Endwalker.

While I will admittedly be sad, even a rather disapointed (because it means we will have to wait a minimum of 4 years to ge tthem) if male viera and female hrotgar arent announced in the next fanfest for 6.0, I really, really highly doubt that if the game is gonna go for 10 years they will stay 10 years without updating the engine or just adding the missing gneders (and likely a new race in some expacs) as selling points of future expansions, that given how the game shows no intention to truly mix it up with each expansion they will need as many selling points for each of them, as just 'more of the same but new story' is unlikely to keep players invested for 10 years.

[MikkoAkure]

While I will admittedly be sad, even a rather disapointed (because it means we will have to wait a minimum of 4 years to ge tthem) if male viera and female hrotgar arent announced in the next fanfest for 6.0, I really, really highly doubt that if the game is gonna go for 10 years they will stay 10 years without updating the engine or just adding the missing gneders (and likely a new race in some expacs) as selling points of future expansions, that given how the game shows no intention to truly mix it up with each expansion they will need as many selling points for each of them, as just 'more of the same but new story' is unlikely to keep players invested for 10 years.

Final Fantasy XI is still going as a paid service despite the ancient graphics, Abyssea being a controversial addition, no new races ever added, and no new jobs in 8 years. FFXIV has wider appeal than FFXI ever did and was never a grindfest so I think it has staying power.

[zeylos]

Final Fantasy XI is still going as a paid service despite the ancient graphics, Abyssea being a controversial addition, no new races ever added, and no new jobs in 8 years. FFXIV has wider appeal than FFXI ever did and was never a grindfest so I think it has staying power.

Look at how many players play FFXI, if FFXIV wants to continue as one of the most popular MMOs for 10 years they will need some serious upgrades to be able to compete with the newer, shinier, more advanced mmos of a similar niche, such as for example blue protocol, pso2 ngs and many others that are likely to come (not to mention the league mmo is likely gonna be a force to be reckoned with and it will most likely be rerleased before 10 years into the future).

[Vespar]

I agree that FFXIV needs to keep remaining fresh by adding in new features/jobs/etc. That should potentially include rounding at the remaining races with Viera and Hrothgar's missing genders. Heck maybe even in the future they could fully add Lupin.
That said it does not need to happen overnight and should obviously be handled with care. I realize its a LOT of work to rescale and adjust current armors to fit new races. But I feel it should still happen. Including the missing hats for the newer races.
But we have time if they intend to keep FFXIV going for atleast another 5-10 years.
A way they could potentially get around this is have any new bestial races (like Lupin for example) use the same body style, but have separate head models for male/female.

[zeylos]

I agree that FFXIV needs to keep remaining fresh by adding in new features/jobs/etc. That should potentially include rounding at the remaining races with Viera and Hrothgar's missing genders. Heck maybe even in the future they could fully add Lupin.
That said it does not need to happen overnight and should obviously be handled with care. I realize its a LOT of work to rescale and adjust current armors to fit new races. But I feel it should still happen. Including the missing hats for the newer races.
But we have time if they intend to keep FFXIV going for atleast another 5-10 years.
A way they could potentially get around this is have any new bestial races (like Lupin for example) use the same body style, but have separate head models for male/female.

I think people would be generally speaking totally fine with male viera/female hrotgar/any hypothetical new races using the exact same body as another, with different animations and maybe different heads, I really dont think that they should make na entirely new body ofr each race they add as to me it feels relaly unnecesary, for example they gave one to maleh rotgar that turns into a normal male roe body as soon as they wear various gear items, so I bet it would be easier to have just made them be exactly like male roes but with different animations (and also no hunched back was needed) instead of developing a new body just for them